


To Carry All My Love For You

by ineffablefool



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (comes up in the text plenty with lots of loving descriptors from Crowley), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, No Sex, No Smut, Other, Pining, Post-Canon, because accurate, fat positivity, i think medium angst?, it's been so long since i had to tag an Angst-To-Soft fic i keep forgetting the tags to use, rated T because tiny bit of mild swearing from Crowley, that tag should be on all my stories tbh even though it's not a canonical tag, the ending is very Soft i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21594439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool
Summary: “A holiday.”  Aziraphale repeats the words carefully.  Like he’s tasting them.  “To celebrate...”Us, Crowley thinks, but doesn’t say.You and me.  We’re still here.  Not together, no, we’ll never be that.  But you’re alive, angel.  I’d celebrate that every day if I could.(Crowley and Aziraphale celebrate the anniversary of Their Side.  Aziraphale is round and lovely, including very round and very lovely arms, and Crowley is a conifer.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 171
Kudos: 445
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens





	To Carry All My Love For You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Welcome (or welcome back) to the Soft Zone(TM)!
> 
> This story came out of [an ask](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189265174469/this-is-really-weird-but-i-was-wondering-if-maybe) I received on Tumblr. A lovely anon, who I hope is having a good day today, stated that my stories had helped them feel better about having a belly, and asked whether I could also write about Aziraphale having big arms. Turns out I could! So here is a completely-asexual, aggressively-fat-positive story about a Crowley who pines for all of Aziraphale -- including his very big and soft arms. I hope it is what anon was looking for.
> 
> I'm writing for the TV characterization, but I've decided that my written Aziraphale's body is larger than Mr. Sheen's. Tumblr and AO3 user Squeegeelicious has created [this absolutely gorgeous artwork](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for) for my human AU which comes very close to the body shape and size you should imagine for this fic. This fic's Aziraphale just has larger arms!
> 
> **Edit 2/1/2020:** [This story now has art!](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/190598064544/aziraphale-is-a-goddamn-vision-of-loveliness)
> 
> Title is from [Oceans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSd3ZreuU_U), by MisterWives.

It’s a stupid idea, really. Sentimental. Crowley is almost ashamed to suggest it at all. Aziraphale will laugh at him, surely. Him, a _demon_ , being so ridiculous as to stammer out the idea that maybe the two of them could take a holiday — nothing fancy, just a trip to the coast, mark out a year since the world didn’t end — 

Aziraphale looks up from his current task of book-sorting so quickly that Crowley almost stumbles back a step. “A holiday.” He repeats the words carefully. Like he’s tasting them. “To celebrate...”

_Us_ , Crowley thinks, but doesn’t say. _You and me. We’re still here. Not together, no, we’ll never be that. But you’re alive, angel. I’d celebrate that every day if I could._

“You know.” He shrugs. “The whole... thing. There still being a Brighton and all. One that’s not all melted.”

“A whole year,” Aziraphale says. His voice is neutral enough, like he’s commenting on the weather, but Crowley can see his plump hand on the desk. It traces back and forth, fingers trailing over the surface. As though he’s distracted. Lost in thought.

Crowley could take that hand, of course. Close the distance between them, pick it up with his trembling own. Speak his ageless truth against the tender palm.

He doesn’t. It’s his truth only, not theirs to share. He knows by now, after all this time since they’ve been free. A year next week. Any day Aziraphale could have said something, now that he can, but he hasn’t. That’s what makes it certain.

Crowley is the only one here who’s in love.

And of course Aziraphale won’t want to go away with him — not even just to the shore, just for a few days —

“All right.”

“I didn’t figure,” Crowley replies, mouth on autopilot. “No worries, I —”

He stops. Stares. “All right?”

Aziraphale sweeps one of the piles of books into his wide arms. Smiles at him, beautiful and soft and completely, eternally not his. “It might be — good, to get out of London for a bit. Celebrate there being a Brighton.”

He stands there a moment longer. “We’ve... something else to celebrate, too, you know.” A pause. “It wasn’t important, I suppose, only...”

Gently take the books out of Aziraphale’s arms. Set them aside. Take their place. Step within the circle of those arms, hidden beneath tailored sleeves now, but Crowley’s memory is long. He has seen them bare and shining, threaded with gold, under an ages-past sun.

Crowley doesn’t move, of course. Just waits for the end of the sentence.

“Well.” Aziraphale shifts, balancing his cargo against his belly. “It would be the one-year mark for. Ah. Our side.”

He smiles again, and then he’s gone. Off to put his books on whatever shelf he’s decided will house them.

Maybe Crowley should ask for a shelf for his heart. Store it there, ancient and dusty and pointless. Refuse to ever sell it. Wouldn’t want it to suddenly be of use.

* * *

The cottage is small and quaint, just a short walk from the sea, down a little path lined with roses. The entire place is a mess of roses. Crowley worries it’s too obvious, but Aziraphale is instantly charmed when he sees it. Places a hand on Crowley’s arm for one instant, one-half of one shimmering second, before pulling it away again, as if remembering who and what he is touching.

Crowley’s truth is still secret, then. Still and always only his.

There is a cozy sitting room and a serviceable kitchen and a bathroom with an old-fashioned tub. There’s only one bedroom, but they’ve agreed this is no issue. Aziraphale doesn’t sleep, after all.

They spend their first evening in the sitting room, Crowley sprawled on a couch that is not the bookshop couch, Aziraphale sitting in a chair that is not the bookshop chair. There is wine, and conversation, and Crowley watches from behind his glasses as Aziraphale talks and laughs and drinks. He is all round shapes, this angel. Round hands clasped atop the round belly. Round arms, pushed up in rolls which are almost obscured by the sleeves of his tweed jacket, tucked up against the round chest. Round double-chinned face beaming at Crowley as Aziraphale recounts his latest run-in with the fellow who truly, utterly believes that Aziraphale is going to sell him that Marlowe some day.

He’s all round shapes, and Crowley is a single slash of black, alone and sharp enough to cut his own heart on. Same as always.

Eventually Crowley excuses himself and slinks off to the bedroom. Falls asleep, alone in the wide bed, dreaming of soft arms.

* * *

Their first full day at the cottage promises to be hot and bright. They agree to go into town for breakfast — it’s an easy enough walk, most of it along the shore, promising to be very peaceful. Very romantic, if one were inclined to think about it that way.

Crowley miracles himself into a wholly unremarkable outfit, just a tank top and shorts. No point in dressing for style. No one who matters would be impressed. He assumes Aziraphale will just wear his usual, the fussy button-up and the ancient waistcoat and the topcoat over everything. And that’s what happens, at first, the two of them walking across the pebbles together, Aziraphale’s wingtips not filling with the stuff because he’s presumably decided that they simply won’t. But he stops while they’re still in view of the cottage.

“I’m being a bit ridiculous, I suppose.”

There is a look in his eyes, almost like the look that always results in Crowley giving him whatever he’s about to ask for. Before Crowley can reply, there is a brief flare of angelic power, followed by a sharp increase in angelic skin.

Aziraphale peers up at him, that same expression still lurking in his eyes. A wanting look, but with no pout to go with it. A need that’s not being asked. “What do you think? More appropriate for the setting?”

It’s a paler version of Crowley’s outfit, more or less. Sandals and shorts in shades of tan rather than black; a shirt in light blue rather than deepest bloodiest red. It’s a casual button-up shirt. Short-sleeved.

“Ap — appropriate.”

The shirt doesn’t even _have_ buttons all the way up to the throat. It sweeps over the ample curve of Aziraphale’s belly like it was made specifically to show off the spread of him, of a design six thousand years old, and why mess with perfection.

“I, uh.”

The sleeves are cut large, because here, too, is that perfect design, unchanging and unmatched. Aziraphale’s arms are beautifully round, pressed against the padding of his chest even when they’re hanging idly at his sides like this. The shirt doesn’t hide them any more than it hides his belly. There is no minimizing of the soft swell of flesh, the gentle roll that forms above each elbow, plainly visible past the ends of the sleeves. And his forearms, of course, are bare for the first time in possibly centuries. Not big enough for any marks of Heavenly gold, but still well beyond plump, shading into broad wrists. Into flawless dimpled hands. Those are arms that could cradle a demon very gently. Those are hands that could hold a demon very close.

Crowley finds his tongue, lying faint at the bottom of his mouth. “You look great, angel.” Something flickers in Aziraphale’s eyes, and Crowley realizes his mistake, tongue still not fully revived, not aware of what it’s doing — “You’ll fit right in. Yeah? Just like one of the humans. You’re not even more’n fifty years out of date.”

He’s rewarded with a smile for that, a good one, with just a little bastardy edge to it. “Have you considered that some fashions may, in fact, be ageless classics?”

“Not any of the ones you wear.” His mouth curls with delight around the words. This is something he could spend eternity doing. Snapping quips back and forth with the only being who has ever really understood him, who knows him, accepts him — who has _been_ him — has worn his dried-out skin, and looked his enemies in the eyes, and told them _No. You will not have him. He is mine._

Not _mine_ in the same way Crowley’s own heart sang it, when he wore Aziraphale’s soft perfect body, when those fold-fleshed arms and rounded belly wrapped up his soul. Crowley had stood, three inches shorter and Anybody knew how much heavier and every cell of him filled with love, and he had walked into the fire, and with his scorn in Aziraphale’s eyes told Heaven _No. You’ll never touch him. He is mine._

They are for each other, not in the way that would let him hold that body to his own. But they belong. Aziraphale said it himself when he accepted this invitation. _Our side_.

Now, on the beach with their rose-drowned holiday cottage at his back, Aziraphale tuts at him. “Honestly. I’d think you’d at least appreciate that I left off the tartan —”

“Wait, what?” Not the type of detail Crowley would have noticed right away, when he was too busy filling his eyes with all of Aziraphale’s beauty. But he realizes now that it’s true. No tartan anywhere. “You — please don’t... ‘leave off’ bits of yourself. Aziraphale. I want —”

_You_ would be the next word in that sentence. _I want you, all of you, nothing downplayed or hidden or put aside in case it bothered me. I want to lose myself in every bit of you and never come out again. Don’t need me anymore, if I’ve got you._

“We’re on holiday,” he says instead. “Should do whatever you like, on holiday.”

Aziraphale has that look again. The wanting look that doesn’t come with a request for Crowley to fulfill. “Whatever I like, hmm?”

Crowley shrugs. Makes a few noises.

“All right, then.” A little smile touches Aziraphale’s face as he snaps down a tiny miracle. “But you did bring this on yourself.”

Nothing new there. He’s brought it all on himself for six thousand years, every time his throat has tightened as he looks at Aziraphale and realizes once again, _Oh yes. That’s right. I love you._ The floppy sunhat with the tartan ribbon is just the latest iteration.

“Ridiculous,” he says. “You’re completely ridiculous.”

Aziraphale beams. “I will take that as a compliment, coming from you.” Then his hand touches Crowley’s arm for a whispering instant — a brief pull, a _come-along-then_ kind of thing, as he starts walking again. Crowley stumbles beside him silently.

Two touches in two days. Is it the end of the world again already?

* * *

There’s an antique shop in town, of course. Crowley knew that perfectly well. Knew that they specialized in books. That sooner or later he’d have a chance to get Aziraphale near it, and the angel’s eyes would light up when he realized, soft mouth opening to say something like — 

“Oh! Look, Crowley, I do believe that’s a second-edition Burnett! I’ve the first edition already, obviously, but — oh, could we stop in a moment?”

Crowley lets one of his eyebrows go up. “And be late to breakfast?”

“I am sure the restaurant will still be there in a half-hour.” Aziraphale rests one hand against his belly for a moment, the motion gentle, the smile on his face unabated. “Believe me, I have no intention of going hungry.”

“Sure,” Crowley responds, “all right,” and follows him into the shop.

It’s not as dull as it could be. There are the books for Aziraphale, of course, and when Crowley tires of being shooed off (“Now, don’t read over my shoulder so, Crowley, you know how distracting it is”), it’s not all tea sets and china dogs. There’s actually a decent array of navigational stuff, maybe because of the proximity to the water, and Crowley spends a while in that corner, idly perusing spyglasses and compasses and ancient dented sextants. The humans do love his stars.

He’s still back in the depths of the shop when Aziraphale and the proprietor start talking. About the books, so Crowley only half-listens at first. Eventually there’s a little sound from Aziraphale, a fretful sort of _hmm_. This, Crowley has long since learned, is the sound of a certain angel just beginning to wonder where a certain demon has gotten himself to.

The proprietor laughs. “Your husband’s wandered off back somewhere,” she says. “Probably napping on one of the sofas; that’s where they usually end up.”

Crowley is listening fully, now, for whatever Aziraphale might say next.

“Ah.” One syllable, almost totally flat. Only a little surprise to round the edges of it. “Of course. That does rather sound like him.”

No denials. No “Oh, he’s not my husband. We’ve never met before. We don’t know each other.”

Aziraphale is moving on as if nothing unusual has happened at all. Maybe a tiny quiver in his voice; maybe not. Maybe it’s only Crowley’s heart in his own ears. “Would you be able to wrap this for me, please...?”

“Of course.” More light conversation, goods exchanged for money. Crowley keeps listening, but there’s nothing more about him.

He makes sure that he’s stretched out on a sofa when Aziraphale finds him. One of the ones without a “Display Only Please” sign on it, because he doesn’t fancy a scolding. He raises his head when Aziraphale calls, quirking a half-grin at him as if his entire world isn’t balanced on the edge of a knife. “Finally done, are we?”

“Impatient serpent.” The words are soft, though. Softer than usual? Crowley has no idea. Aziraphale didn’t deny it. That must mean something, unless it doesn’t.

Crowley unfolds, long and sharp and no good for anything soft. Love would only slice itself to ribbons on him. Tenderness would only get stuck in the empty hollows of his chest.

“Things to do, angel, humans to tempt. And next on my jam-packed schedule is... let’s see...” He pulls out his phone, pretending to scroll through something. “Ah yes. That very important breakfast.”

He idles past Aziraphale, headed toward the front. “Come on, then. Don’t have all day.”

He keeps his tone casual, teasing. Doesn’t bring up the topic he’s really interested in right now. _Husband_ , he could say. _Am I that? Could I be yours, not like you’ve always taken me, friend and adversary and one-half of a Side. Would you hold me in your heart, if I asked? Would you hold me in your arms?_

Aziraphale’s round arms hold nothing. A paper bag swings from one hand, but that’s it. The proprietor smiles at them as they leave, two _husbands_ from her perspective, two humans pledged to each other for all their lives, and Crowley imagines her being right. He wouldn’t have to keep his arms jangling empty by his sides, then. He could sling one around Aziraphale’s broad shoulders, easy as breathing. Aziraphale could wind his own arm around Crowley’s waist. Maybe they’d stop for a quick kiss on the way to breakfast. Wide rolling belly pressed against Crowley’s front, wide rolling arms circling his back —

He realizes that he’s stopped on the pavement, staring at nothing. Aziraphale flutters beside him, saying his name in a tone which suggests it’s not the first time.

“Sorry.” Crowley reaches under the sunglasses to rub his eyes. “Distracted. Let’s get you your breakfast, I’ll feel better.”

“That hardly follows logically,” Aziraphale replies, although when Crowley starts walking again, he falls into step.

The restaurant does very good crepes according to Crowley’s research. Aziraphale’s reaction indicates agreement, though he also plays plenty of attention to the croissants and scones and jam. There are little breakfast potatoes which merit an intrigued eyebrow at first bite, and which disappear rapidly thereafter.

Crowley nurses a mimosa and tastes everything Aziraphale offers him. He wonders how many humans look at the two of them and think _husbands_.

“Tonight,” he finds himself saying, thankfully while Aziraphale is drinking, so he’s not interrupting anything. “Thought we might take a late drive. This’s the time of year for the Perseids, and.” Aziraphale is smiling, now, small and thoughtful, and something about the sight of it makes the words dry up before Crowley can get to them. “Could watch,” he mutters into his glass.

“I’d love to.”

“Right. Thanks. Know it’s more my thing than yours, but —”

Aziraphale almost seems to reach for him, but he isn’t. His plump hand settles on the table where he obviously meant to put it. “It will be a lovely night, I’m sure. Do you have a spot for viewing already picked out?”

Of course he does. Figured it all out ahead of time, same as the antique shop, the crepes. “Bit north of here. Toward Ditchling. There’s a nature reserve. Way out from everyone else.”

“Lovely,” Aziraphale says again. His eyes crinkle gently, smile lighting up his perfect round face — not the sunshine brightness he sometimes gets, but something soft and warm. “A summer night, just the two of us and your meteors. It all sounds very ro —”

Crowley’s fingers tighten on his glass. He can think of a word that might follow that initial sound, sure. It’s the one he’s been thinking about ever since he realized that this strange little anniversary coincided with the Perseids. And before that, of course. He’s thought about it in conjunction with Aziraphale for a long, long time. That lonely truth of his again.

Aziraphale clears his throat. “Very reasonable, as a way to spend an evening.” He drinks deeply from his own glass, and doesn’t really look at Crowley until well after they’re on another topic.

* * *

It’s hours past noon by the time they finish up in town and start back toward the cottage. There’s a colony of seagulls not far off, wheeling and diving over the water. Aziraphale stops for a while to watch them.

Crowley watches him watch them. The angel is captivated by them, by the simple phenomenon of a bunch of flying vermin, yelling at each other as they swoop about.

The wind gusts a little harder, and Aziraphale claps a hand to his silly sunhat so he can keep cooing over the birds. “Beautiful creatures, aren’t they, Crowley?”

“Beautiful.” Crowley still isn’t looking at them.

Aziraphale smiles brightly, at him, at the gulls. The wind pulls at him, flattening his clothes against his body, then letting them go. He’s all round shapes again. Still. Round calves bare in the sunlight, scandalous after centuries hidden away. Round belly, caressed now by the wind, shirttail fluttering beneath its hang. Round chest, and round shoulders, and round arms.

He’s still got the bag from the shop dangling from one hand, the other hand keeping his hat in place. That upraised arm is a tantalizing study in folds — the slight crease of bent wrist, the deep bend of elbow. The rolls that form above the elbow, pressed into existence now, though they’ll mostly vanish as soon as Aziraphale drops his hand.

Stretch marks glimmer all along the underside of the arm. They kiss branching patterns up the sides, too, up toward the freckled top. Crowley would add his own kisses if he could. Set his lips to the marks, to the skin they travel on. He loves all of Aziraphale. That’s his truth, the oldest one that he still believes in, the one he’ll have to carry alone. Can’t even share it with the bloody seagulls.

_Hey, you feathery bastards_ , he could shout, back out here alone while Aziraphale read or coddled the roses beside the cottage or did some blessed thing. _I’m in love, and I want all of him. I want his stupid clothing, and his crumbling old books, and his cocoa with six marshmallows, no, of course you can’t get away with just **five** , Crowley, it simply doesn’t work with just five, if that’s all that’s left then we’ll have to pop down to the grocer’s and that’s all there is to it. I want his shouting at me about my driving, and his clever brain and his sharp tongue. I want his softness, every inch of it, enough to fill my arms and then some, maybe, but I want it all. I want his arms so wide and heavy around me that I couldn’t escape if I wanted to. I’ll never want to. I love him. All of him._

Seagulls won’t care. Just stupid birds, they are.

He circles idly, realizing that he’s been drawing nearer to Aziraphale only when those quiet blue eyes turn up to him. They’re so much closer than he expects. His own eyes drift downward, tracing over the delicately upturned nose... the pudgy cheeks, reddened a little, maybe from the sun or the wind... the slowly-parting lips...

“Crowley?” Barely a murmur. Almost lost under the cries of the gulls.

Could he tuck a finger beneath that round chin, use it to guide their mouths together? Maybe. Probably. For the second or two it would take Aziraphale to get over his shock and wrench himself away.

He paces out another circle, making this one wider. Farther away. “When you’re ready. No rush.”

“Ah. Yes.” Aziraphale’s hand drops to his side. His upper arm rearranges itself, one fold above the elbow, the rest gone for now. Hidden in the perfect fall of softness. “We may as well. I’d like to get this book indoors, out of the — weather.”

It’s a perfect sunny day, of course, hardly a cloud to be seen. Crowley doesn’t point it out. “Sure. Lead the way, angel.”

They walk on. Back at the cottage, Crowley decides to take a soak in the bath. Wash off the grit and the salt spray. When he’s done, he miracles back into his usual clothing. Out in the sitting room, Aziraphale has done the same.

* * *

“Oh, this should be all right, don’t you think, Crowley? We ought to have a good view here.”

Crowley has brought a blanket, a real one, to the hillside near Ditchling. He nods now. Begins shaking it out. “Perfect. Just let me get this set up so you don’t get grass stains on those museum-piece trousers.”

“How thoughtful.” His voice is carefully deadpan. Crowley is too busy fiddling with the blanket to look (it’s the thickest one he could find, but he doubles it up anyway — should have brought more, pillows too maybe, because what if the ground is hard, what if Aziraphale isn’t comfortable —). He has a feeling, though, that there’s a smile on that adorable face. It cracks through the voice, too, as Aziraphale continues: “Your commentary on my attire is well-noted, for the record. Never one to pass up an opportunity to get in a dig, are you?”

Crowley’s hand finds a stone under the blanket, which he miracles away. “Nope. Not s’long as I live.” He stands, and Aziraphale is so close that he almost bumps into him. “Er.”

“I see.” The hillside is dark, of course. That’s the point, no light but the stars and the cellphone screen he’d led them up here with. Crowley can still see Aziraphale’s face, though, a soft moon, turned up to him again like it was on the shore earlier. Marked with that gentle wanting. Whatever need it is that Aziraphale won’t speak, won’t ask for with pouting eyes and sweet hopeful mouth, so Crowley can’t fall over himself to give it to him.

“I see,” Aziraphale says again. Crowley wishes now that he would explain it, because that expression and that sudden quiet tone make Crowley feel as though he doesn’t see at all. “Thank you for the warning, I suppose. I shall set my — my future expectations accordingly.”

Crowley wriggles his fingers, trapped at his sides at the end of long, stiff arms. “I mean. Lot of future on this mudball, hopefully. Might just want to mark your whole calendar, same thing every day. ‘Eleven o’clock, have terrible fashion sense pointed out. Noon, lunch.’”

“Would I be penciling you in for that lunch, as well?”

Crowley can’t find any laughter in Aziraphale’s tone now. No smile. His voice is too soft, too small to fit such a thing. There’s just the question, and the only answer he can give to it. “Put me in ink, if you want.”

Aziraphale looks up at him. Keeps looking. Doesn’t say anything.

Crowley’s hands twitch, aching to hold something. A pretty pair of chins, maybe. Soft spilling arms. The gold-spangled ocean of belly and love handles which he hasn’t seen in millennia but which he will never forget. His memory is long, and wide enough to hold an angel.

“Oh,” Aziraphale gasps, eyes filling with wonder.

Crowley’s breath drifts away into nothing.

“Oh, Crowley, look. One of your meteors.”

Aziraphale isn’t looking at him, now. He’s looking past him, up at the sky. Crowley turns, too late to see anything, but that’s all right. They have time.

They settle on the blanket, a polite distance apart, and Aziraphale exclaims each time a light streaks across the sky. There’s not a lot of them, it’s too late in the cycle for that, but Aziraphale is delighted by each one. Crowley has his sunglasses off in the sheltering dark, and he’s delighted too. Each change of expression on Aziraphale’s gorgeous mobile face is a new wonder.

They talk for hours, in between the spots of light. Shifting now and then to get comfortable, or to reach for the glasses which appear at some point, full of wine which is only miracled but still not half bad.

It’s probably past three in the morning when Aziraphale laughs. “Look — two at once, there —”

And they’re close enough to touch, now, because Aziraphale’s hand settles on his arm, tugging gently at the sleeve, then relaxing against it. He’s pointing up to where two meteors are, in fact, passing in near-tandem. Crowley doesn’t really watch them, because watching would imply a certain level of attention, and there’s a hand on his arm taking up most of that. But he does see them.

He forces a couple of words past all the love that’s backed up in his throat. “Nice, yeah?”

Aziraphale’s voice sparkles. “It’s beautiful, Crowley, thank you. I’m so very glad you suggested this.”

The hand stays for seconds, minutes, centuries, and Crowley doesn’t know why, but he won’t break the spell by asking. When it does move, it’s because Aziraphale is telling some story which requires both hands to illustrate.

He’s gesturing hugely, so much drama that an observer might think he was recounting an epic clash of kingdoms, a tale of love and loss and victory across a thousand years of battlefields. Nothing so mundane, though. This is the one about the all-night diner that closed back in the 1960s, and Aziraphale never did track down the owner to try to get the secret to their amazing hot chocolate, and now it’s too late, the poor woman is undoubtedly gone by now, the opportunity lost.

Kingdoms rise and fall, Crowley figures, and the humans will battle over them forever. But that chocolate will never come again.

Aziraphale’s cheeks flush with the excitement of the retelling; his chest and belly heave with each deep breath. His wide arms shift and roll, the shape of them different with every way he chooses to hold them. He’s beautiful and ridiculous and Crowley actually reaches for him twice. Thankfully, Aziraphale doesn’t notice either time.

The night wanes. The Earth hurtles onwards. Eventually the sky starts to lighten in the east.

“You gave up a night’s sleep for this,” Aziraphale says suddenly, as Crowley gathers up their blanket in the quiet dim. “Goodness, I’m sorry. We could have left hours ago.”

Crowley shrugs. Sure, go back to the cottage. Fall asleep alone. Wake up with his arms empty. “Wanted to do this. Had a good time, didn’t you?”

“I did. I —”

Crowley stands there, blanket lumped under one arm, waiting for the end of the sentence. It takes a while. Long enough that he’s a little surprised to get what seems like a perfectly simple answer.

“I had a very fine time. Thank you.”

“Both did, then. No reason to apologize.”

His glasses are still off, and when he smiles at Aziraphale, it’s with genuine eye contact. Aziraphale smiles back, soft and sweet.

“Do you think any of the restaurants will be open by the time we get back to town?”

Crowley grins as he starts down the hill, Aziraphale not even half a step behind. “I’ll take the scenic route back. Nice long drive with hardly any speeding at all. Get you there just in time for breakfast.”

A happy little hum. “You’re too kind, Crowley.”

“I’m not,” Crowley answers, and now the glasses go back on. “I’m really not.”

* * *

Their third full day at the cottage is the anniversary of the world failing to end.

Crowley wants to wake early, while Aziraphale is still lost in his nighttime reading, so he can sneak past and drive to town and stop at the French bakery which is run by actual Parisians. He’ll buy one of everything, tarts and croissants and pain au chocolat, whatever they have, whatever they’ll sell him. Bring it all back here for Aziraphale to choose from as he sees fit. _Happy anniversary, angel. Our side. You have to know I’ve never forgotten it. I promise you I never will._

But when he opens the bedroom door and slinks out into the sitting room, Aziraphale isn’t reading. He’s still on the sofa where Crowley left him, fully dressed except for jacket and shoes, but his book lies closed on the coffee table.

“Good morning.”

Aziraphale’s voice is quiet. There’s a little smile on his face, but there’s also a troubled look around his eyes.

“Mnuh.” Crowley shambles over to the sofa and flops down at the other end. “Finished your book?”

“For now. Crowley —” Aziraphale stops. His round hands twist in his lap. “It was today everything was supposed to end. Last year. Still hard to believe it’s — all over.”

Crowley shrugs. “For now.” He’s very nonchalant, very relaxed, very not letting anything past the sunglasses. He doesn’t understand why Aziraphale looks like that. Why he’s wringing his hands in short fretful movements instead of reading. Aziraphale _loves_ reading.

“Yes. The ‘big one’. Heaven and Hell against us.” Aziraphale sighs, and for a moment he looks so small and lost that Crowley physically hurts from not being able to hold him. Just scoot over and sweep all that angelic softness into his arms, he could. Whisper whatever words it would take to get Aziraphale to smile again.

“It... it is ‘us’, isn’t it.” Aziraphale looks at him. “I don’t think either of us has thought otherwise since... since that night. And the trials.”

Crowley’s chest is full of something hot and bright and killing, and he can feel it trying to work its way up his throat. He says the words that he believes utterly, that he holds very close to his heart. Not quite as close as certain other words, though, three of them, shining and secret and true. “We’re on our side.”

Aziraphale nods. “We are.”

He shifts, like he’s going to reach out to Crowley, although of course he doesn’t. His wide arms remain by his sides. “For whatever that means. And I — I know what it means to me.”

Crowley wants to say a hundred thousand things, but all that comes out is “Angel.”

“But I know that, regardless of... of _exactly_ what it means to you —”

“Everything.”

Aziraphale goes instantly silent.

The word feels like it’s been dragged out of Crowley on the end of a barbed hook. All the words are tangled together, though, so now they keep coming. Spilling on the sofa between them with all his guts torn out in jagged yearning syllables.

“It means everything to me. You do. Because it’s us, right, it’s just you and me, and it’s always been us for me, all the way back. It’s always been you.”

He pulls a breath into his useless lungs. Aziraphale just stares at him, hands gone utterly still in his lap.

“Maybe they’ll come for us tomorrow. Or a thousand years from now. A hundred thousand. But I want us to face them together when they do.” He turns, moving closer, although not close enough. “I want us to _be_ together. Because.”

The end of that sentence catches on a rib. Trapped in the hollows of him, of his wretched excuse for a heart.

“Ah,” Aziraphale says. That’s it. The syllable is almost flat, rounded only a little with surprise. It’s the same way he sounded at the antique shop, responding to the word _husband_.

“Ah,” he says again, only this time he breathes it out just a little longer. “So it does mean that.”

Crowley jerks a nod. “Does, yeah.”

“Then...”

And Aziraphale’s face goes _radiant_. “Then we’re the same. We’re exactly the same.”

Crowley blinks, trying to process the words, trying to process that _smile_ , and suddenly Aziraphale is right there, bare inches away. His hands ghost just over Crowley’s chest. His mouth trembles, eyes wide and starey and bright.

“I’m... I’m not misinterpreting, am I...?”

“Nn.” Crowley reaches up, pulling off his sunglasses, letting them fall somewhere behind the sofa. “Not. Nope. Got it exactly right.”

He buries his hands in Aziraphale’s hair, and Aziraphale falls into him with a tiny sigh which is quickly lost against Crowley’s lips.

Crowley has imagined many, many times what it would be like to kiss Aziraphale. He’s imagined what the round body would feel like in his embrace, what the round arms would feel like embracing _him_. He has no idea how accurate any of those imaginings might have been, because he can no longer remember them. Can’t remember anything. Even his own name is a little fuzzy right now. There’s only now, this instant, Aziraphale’s lips tender against his own, Aziraphale’s arms heavy around his neck — his body heavy against Crowley’s, all those round perfect shapes pressing into him, smoothing away his sharp emptiness —

“Angel,” he manages, and Aziraphale hums out a sleepy-sounding “Yes?” before catching his lips again.

“Angel,” Crowley tries again, “— angel —”

Then he’s laughing, uncontrollably laughing at the fact that he’s here, that this is happening, it’s not just his imagination. This is the real Aziraphale, giggling too, now, wide belly shaking with it. When Crowley slides his hands over the soft shoulders, he hears the quiet rasp of fabric beneath his palms. He can see reflections in Aziraphale’s eyes from the windows. He can smell the weird floral potpourri which the cottage’s owners have for some reason elected to outfit the room with.

All the little details tell him that this is real. His imagination isn’t _this_ good.

Aziraphale’s giggles trail off, but he’s still smiling as Crowley traces wondering fingers over his shoulders, his arms. Raised like this, wound around Crowley’s neck, those arms settle into rolls that are only partially obscured by the fabric of Aziraphale’s button-down shirt. Crowley can see where each presses against the cloth.

He wants to kiss them. So he does.

One reverent touch of lips to Aziraphale’s right arm, just below the shoulder, one of the spots where he’s currently roundest. A second, and a third. Somewhere under the sleeves are those precious stretch marks, and he’s going to kiss them too someday, assuming Aziraphale lets him have that privilege. But for now, it’s the perfect shapes that make up Aziraphale’s arms, first the right and then the left.

When he’s done, he finally speaks his truth aloud. No longer secret, anymore. Now it’s shared. Shared, and given right back to him from grinning lips, filling all his empty places up with sunlight. With softness. With love.

They don’t leave the cottage until mid-afternoon. There’s too much to say to each other, cuddled together on the sofa, long, slow kisses occasionally interrupting their train of thought.

* * *

“Come on, then, angel.” Crowley can hear how tender the words come out, how absolutely soppy, and he doesn’t care. “If you get distracted by every third shop on the way, we’ll never make it to lunch.”

“But those little petits fours are darling, Crowley, you have to admit.” Aziraphale leaves the window display behind willingly enough, though. Crowley barely has to tug on his hand at all.

Aziraphale had slipped his plump hand into Crowley’s somewhere along the way into town. Neither of them shows any inclination to let go now.

They stroll into the restaurant that way, two man-shaped beings in miracled-up holiday clothes, although this time Aziraphale has forgone the sunhat and just made his bloody shorts tartan. They look ridiculous, which makes them absolutely perfect. Just like the rest of Aziraphale, his plump hands and his round belly and his wide gold-streaked upper arms. The humans can’t see the gold peeking out from his short sleeves, but it’s there. It’s everywhere that Aziraphale’s corporation is softest.

When Aziraphale asks for champagne with their meal, their server smiles. “I’ll see what I can do. Two glasses?”

Aziraphale beams at Crowley, all his round shapes just there across the table, close enough to touch. And Crowley can touch now. He can reach out his hand, and feel Aziraphale take it in his. There’s going to be a lot of this in their future, he’s fairly certain. He’s very excited about the idea.

“Two glasses.” Aziraphale’s voice, when he answers, has never been surer. “One for me, and one for my husband.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Programming note: for readers of If Not Now, When, remember, we return Monday December 2!)
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you were thinking of leaving a comment, please know that I treasure every single one, whether it's a single emoticon, a copy-pasted line, a keysmash, an entire novel of feelings, or whatever. (Even after a story's been online for a while and already has comments! I like to know that my babies are still loved!) I've literally cried a few times reading some of the lovely things people have said in comments, and they really are fuel for my soft little heart -- but never, ever required, so please don't feel pressured. Just know that if you're ever questioning whether it would bother or annoy me for you to comment or otherwise reach out, _no oh goodness no it will never bother me it will absolutely do the opposite of that_.
> 
> If you want to say hi on Tumblr, I'm [ineffablefool](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com) there, too. The last sentence of the previous paragraph applies here as well. 
> 
> I would never actively request art from anyone I wasn't paying, but if you, the human reading this, were to decide it was worth your time to create fanart based on any of my stories, I would be incredibly honored ([and would love to enshrine it forever on my Tumblr](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ineffablefool-gets-fanart-from-lovely-people))! I have only one requirement: please don't draw Aziraphale any thinner than the size I headcanon (I need both my soft cuddly daydreams, and my positive fat representation). Here are some examples of what that sort of minimum body size/shape might look like: ([beautiful fanart created for me by Squeegeelicious](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for)) ([speremint 1](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186342035100/i-did-this-instead-of-my-hw-ya-girl-is-gonna)) ([speremint 2 from her Reversed Omens AU](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700/finally-finally-done-making-these-refs-my)) ([dotstronaut](https://dotstronaut.tumblr.com/post/186740069618/no-really-i-dont-think-you-all-understand-how)) Otherwise, the characters can look however you like!
> 
> (If you say something nice about one of my stories and I recognize you as an artist who does commissions, there is a chance I will ask to give you an amount of money of your choosing to draw your favorite bit of the story you complimented. Just a little warning.) 
> 
> I hope you're having a fantastic day.


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